Car thieves in Kitsap hot for Hondas

BREMERTON - Having finished classes one day in October, Jessica Lockhart ascended the steps to the roof of the Bremerton Harborside parking garage, pulling out the keyless remote for her 1998 Honda Civic.

She'd remembered where she parked but her car was not there. She punched the button on her keychain to honk the car's horn, but heard only silence.

"There was no sound," said Lockhart, an aspiring pharmacist attending Everest College. "There was no car."

The cops came, took a report and left. The Bremerton resident then started to process the fact that someone had stolen the car — the first car in her life she'd bought with her own money. The car that contained a camera full of memories from her 21st birthday three nights before.

"I just started freaking out," she said.

Lockhart joined a none-too-exclusive group of 1990s model Honda owners around the Kitsap peninsula who've been ripped off this year, an explosion of thefts that police are still in the thick of investigating.

Honda thefts are not a new phenomenon — the make is always among the most popular to steal — but the prevalence in Kitsap County leads investigators to believe both individuals and rings are targeting them with much greater frequency. Around 50 have been stolen in Kitsap County since June; and more than a dozen have been taken inside Bremerton city limits since Oct. 25.

The trend has become so commonplace, "Every time we have a new stolen (car), I ask if it's a '90s model Honda," reports Geoffrey Marti, police commander in Port Orchard, where about 20 Hondas have been taken from the city this year alone.

Investigators are finding a common thread among the thefts: The culprits appear to be using shaved down keys just grooved enough to get inside and start the engine.

Lockhart's case provided police with footage to prove it. Surveillance from the parking garage caught the thief in the act — an eight-minute crime, start to finish, using such a key.

What thieves do with the cars ranges from joy-riding to stripping it of valuable parts, according to Kitsap County Sheriff's Detective Lori Blankenship. Electronics and items left inside are almost always taken.

In Lockhart's case, it took under an hour for her to learn that her car had been found, abandoned and ransacked, in South Kitsap Community Park, 11 miles away.

The thief had taken everything out of the car, down to her Japanese air freshener. The car still runs, she says, but the transmission needs work.

Bremerton Police Detective Marty Garland, who investigated Lockhart's theft, said owners who even possess Hondas can take steps to safeguard their vehicles. An alarm system and a club, he said, can go along way in deterring a theft.

"None of the cars that have been stolen have had any alarm on them, any club or any anti-theft device," he said of the city's recent theft rash.

The more he, Blankenship and other detectives dig, the more they find that thieves hold few inhibitions about where to rip off a car.

"They're stealing them from park-and-rides, grocery stores, in front of residences," Blankenship said. Numerous thefts have been reported at places like Olympic College's Bremerton campus and the new Haselwood YMCA in Silverdale.

Detectives say that through witness interviews and surveillance evidence of some thefts, they've been able to track down a number of suspects, some of whom have been arrested and some of whom they're still looking for.

In Lockhart's theft, Detective Garland was able to identify the man from the surveillance video. He was spotted in another surveillance video at Rite Aid on Kitsap Way, where he's alleged to have ditched a car stolen at Pendergast Park.

Police caught up to the man, 21, arresting him Monday at Safeway on Callow Avenue. Garland said he was found to have dropped some shaved keys at the store that police recovered.

Lockhart said she's just happy to get her own car back.

And she isn't taking any chances. With the help of her boyfriend, she's installed an alarm system in it and purchased a club.

Still, the experience has left her jaded that thieves could again take her car.

"They got in my car once," she said, "They could do it again."

Spot a car thief?

Detectives are looking for any information relating to the rash of thefts of Hondas this year. Call Bremerton Police Detective Marty Garland at 360-473-5488 or Lori Blankenship at 360-337-5615 if you have information.